ew."

"Why, hallo!" exclaimed the Major, glancing up at the sound of a
blind being drawn above, in the Custom House window. "What the deuce
is delaying Pennefather?"

While he speculated, Scipio emerged from the house, bearing in one
hand a decanter of brown sherry, and in the other a visitor's card.

"Eh--what? M. Cesar Dupin?" The Major, holding the card almost at
arm's length, conned it with a puzzled frown.

"From Guernsey, Major."

"Good Lord! And I've just invited Pennefather!" The Major rose
half-way from his chair with a face of dismay.

Scipio glanced up at the Custom House window. He, too, had caught
the sound of the drawn blind.

"Mas' Pennefather, Major, if you'll excuse me, he see a hole t'ro' a
ladder, but not t'ro' a brick wall. Shall I show the genelman in?"

"I fear," began Miss Marty, as the Doctor took a seat in the parlour,
"I greatly fear that Scipio has carried the brown sherry out to the
terrace."

Dr. Hansombody smiled as a lover but sighed as a connoisseur.

"There is the Fra Angelico, however." She stepped to a panelled
cupboard on the right of the chimney-piece. "Made from my own
recipe," she added archly.

The Doctor lifted a hand in faint protest; but already she had set a
glass before him. He knew the Fra Angelico of old. It was a
specific against catarrh, and he had more than once prescribed it for
Scipio.

"Wine is wine," continued Miss Marty, reaching down the bottle.
"And, after all, when one knows what it is made of, as in this case--
that seems to me the great point."

"You mustn't think--" began the Doctor.

"I must plead guilty"--Miss Marty poured out a glassful--"if its name
suggests a foreign origin. You men, I know, profess a preference for
foreign wines; and so, humorously, I hit on the name of Fra Angelico,
from the herb angelica, which is its main ingredient. In reality, as
I can attest, it is English to the core."

The Doctor lifted his glass and set it down again.

"You will join me?" he asked, pointing to the decanter and
temporising.

"Pardon me. I indulge but occasionally: when I have a cold."

"And the Major?"

"He pleads habit. He says he is wedded to the vintages of France and
Spain. 'What?' I rally him, 'when those two nations are at war with
us? And you call yourself a patriot?' He permits these railleries."

"He is a man in a thousand!"

"There is no man like him!"

"If we exclude a certain resemblance--"

"You r